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is finding new customers or a new location for my next restaurant. we all come together, my restaurant, my partners and the community, amazing things happen, to me, that is the membership effect. >> additional funding provided by these funders. and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. >> let's see this thing at all way through. let's get this done. america is coming back. >> tonight the special edition of charlie rose. >> >> rose: welcome to our program, we are live this evening from new york, danville, kentucky in washington, d.c., at the vice presidential debate tonight, detrimentally incumbent joe biden faced off against paul

ryan, the sex at stake wre high, the strong performance of mitt romney changed the race, it is now wide open with just 25 days until the election, joe biden and paul ryan competed to take control of the narrative. >> this benghazi issue would be a tragedy in and of itself but unfortunately it is indicative of a broader problem and that's what we are watching on the tv screens is the unravelling of the obama foreign policy, we cannot allow iran to gain a nuclear weapons capabiliy. n, t'stake lo at where we have come from. when barack obama was elected, they had enough fissionable ferrill to make one bomb and now they have enough five, they are racing toward a nuclear weapon and four years closer to a nuclear weapons capability. >> war should always be the absolute last resort, these why these crippling sanctions with

netanyahu says we should continue if not mistaken romney says we should continue, i may be mistaken, he changed his mind so often i could be wrong, but the fact othe mter is,e says they are working, and the fact is, that they are being crippled by them. >> they come in and inherit a tough situation? absolutely. but we are going in the wrong direction. look at where we are. the economy is barely limping along. it is growing at 1.3 percent. >> for a guy who says 47 percent of the american people are unwilling to take responsibility for their lives my friend recent y in a peach says 30 percent are takers, these people are my mom and dad, the people i grew up, and my neighbo, th pay more effective tax than governor romney pays in his federal income tax. >> their ideas are old and their ideas are bad and they eliminate the guarantee of medicare. >> that statistic was completely misleading but more importantly -- >> that's the facts. >> this is what politicians do

when they don't have a record to run on. >> rose: joining me now in new york is rich lowry, editor of the "national review", from danville is mark halperin of time magazine, chuck todd of nbc news and from washington al hunt, executive editor of bloomberg news, joining us shortly from washington will be katty kay of the bbc world news america, gwen ifill of pbs and joining us in new york is john dickerson of nbc news and slate magazine, i am glad to have all of them and we go to al hunt for an assessment of what you saw in evening. >> charlie, we saw the anti-obama tonight, and his name was joe biden, the vice president did everything the president failed to do last week. he effectively, i felt rather effectively and passionately defended most administration policies, and he also effectively criticized without malice some of the romney proposals and contradictions. >> i think aside from a few

stylistic issues, programs interrupt ago few too much and smirks it was a very good night for the vice president. paul ryan clearly showed tonight that substantively he can play in the major leagues he didn't make any mistakes and held his own. >> and the president in denver last weekend, and i think joe biden really did in a very compelling way particular will i talking about the middle class, probably has a lot of democrats who were in the abyss of despair, were a lot happier this evening. >> rose: rich lowry. >> biden was the aggressor, especially in the first hour of the debate did a good job in making paul ryan have to do more explaining and in the first hour he did a better job hitting at romney than ryan did hitting at obama. i think ryan, though, was, came across as ernest, knowledgeable and polite, whereas especially in that first hour, joe biden was clearly playing b cable

debate rules, which is interrupt and talk over your opponent at will. i think al is right that is going to enthuse democrats. i am not sure how it is going to play with undecided voters. me personally and i am not an undecided veert it came across as off putting, obnoxious and rude and i can guarantee that on the shows tomorrow morning and in the cable discussion going forward, tomorrow and into the weekend the biden smiles and the biden smirks and the biden interruptions will be a juicy topic for discussion. >> rose: mark hall snrin. >> halperin? >> well, i am mostly going to paraphrase what rich lowry just said, there are two things that clearly come out of this, one is the detrimentally base is going to be pleased that they thought, saw the somebody fighting on their behalf and being aggressive on a lot of big issues that the president did not prosecute in the last debate. two, i think it is clear that with paul ryan will come out of it having a lot of favorable impressions and for a lot of people the impression he is ready to be president if that were required. the big open question is, how

much will this debate be defined with the romney campaign's efforts and willingness on the part of the weed by joe biden's verbal and visual ticks which could end up this is all it is remembered for, even if that is dominant on cable and in comedy shows, which i think it certainly will be, i don't think this debate is really going to change much about the trajectory of where the race is, it is all going to look toward the presidential debate coming up. >> rose: john heilemann? >> charlie, you know, the first, hain thing i thought at the end of this debate, man i can't wait to see what saturday night live does th i there is jt a lot of wonderful, a lot of lampoonable moments and lampoonable behaviors and stylistic stuff as mark was mentioning about joe biden. >> i thought this debate was even on both sides very, aimed very much at the base of both parties and not only will democrats be enthused and i will get back to that in a second but

republicans who had invested a lot of hope in paul ryan as a bright shining hope they heard a lot of things from him and a lot of things that sounded to me like canned talking points but i think there will be a lot of enthuse yasms a a lotf republicans rallying around paul ryan, i don't know how much undecided will be moved, one issue and the paramount strategic thing joe biden had to do is staunch the detrimentally panic post denver and i think he will have done that and one place where paul ryan, the one place where paul ryan may have hurt or potentially opened up some hurt for the republican side is on the question of abortion, mitt romney made some ground after the denver debate in closing the gender gap. i think that paul ryan's abortion may open up new vulnerability toomen i think the obamaampaign thinks this and they are out this evening over the next few evenings pushing that point. >> chuck todd. >> let me give you one quick statistic, everything has been said, not everybody said it, right, tonight so far, but biden said the word romney 18 times,

ryan referred to obama or the president nine times. i think that just shows you how much biden was aggressive, trying to put ryan on the defensive and i think did sort of control the agenda of the debate, if you will, enforcing, and forcing ryan to be on the defensive but it is interesting, they both seemed to have separate game plans, the ryan folks got the impression that biden was going to throw everything at them and boy did he, i don't think he left anything out there and even got the phrase forcible rape in there, 47 percent, you name the detrimentally blue meat if you will rather than calling it red meat and biden threw it and ryan and ryan took the bait a couple of times but didn't take it a lot, i agree with john i think the abortion issue was probably the one opening there, if you are looking at where detrimentallies are going to try to democrats are going to try to drive a wedge, there is scinating and a lot of chatter and republicans and mitch mcconnell on nbc, immediately .. tried to compare biden to al gore and the size, one thing you

say if that is the first thing republicans are spinning, that's a little bit of a tell right, kind of at poker that that is where they want to go, maybe on substance, because if you are scoring as a debate coach you would say, boy, the guy who controlled that debate was joe biden, charlie. >> rose: gwen? >> hi, charlie well it seems one of the interesting things in this debate is that much of it was spent on foreign policy, and that is where there is a real difference. paul ryan clearly came prepared to say this is about the unravelling of america's role in the world, devastating cuts in the military, and they kind of fought to a draw on that. but in both cases it seemed that paul ryan and joe biden came prepared to challenge each other's trustworthiness and each other's credibility and all of the tone, whether it is the smiling or whether the it was the sharp language back and forth, talking over one another from time to time was all to circle back to that same point which is you cannot believe what this guy says. you saw paul ryan at one point

say, i know you are under duress, joe to make up for lost ground alluding to the president's not so great performance last week, and you also saw paul ryan pushing back and also trying to make that link that you cannot believe what this administration says, especially in syria and libya and around the world so i think that that was what they both came in trying to do tonight. >> rose: okay. this question is on everybody's mind, does this debate, until we get to the next presidential debate somehow have an impact on he momentum that governor romney had coming out of the presidential debate? >> albert? >> listen, i got so chastised by john heilemann last week when i suggested that debates may not be the definitive issue in a campaign that i am not dare going to go there again. i won't point out lloyd benson convincingly trounced dan quayle in 1988 and of course it didn't matter. i don't think this matters really in the long run, except

that i do think that it probably took a disparity detrimentally base and helped it, paul ryan certainly other than the possible exception of abortion i am not totally sure i agree with mark on that, other than that paul ryan certainly didn't do any harm tonight. i don't think -- i think next tuesday will be a more important event though i doubt it will be as interesting. >> rose: john dickerson just joined us, my colleague at cbs. i just raised a question of whether this debate in any way until we see the next presidential debate either enhanced or stopped in any way the romney momentum coming out of the first debate and the change it had brought. >> i think what it did is it gave democrats something to be, you know, get their blood going again, there was a lot of chaos and fury and then biden hit every point the president missed from talking about the 47 percent video to talking about detroit, to encapsulating the general argument which is that the romney-ryan ticket, this is of course the argument coming from the obama team that the romney-ryan ticket is just

kind of so over the top in their claims that they are laughable, now that sucker for democrats, the question is, independents and swing voters who could very well have seen biden's attempt to turn ryan into dan quayl which i don't think workd, see that and think he is arrogant, think he is a little too full of himself for an a administration that had the difficulty with this economy they have had. the caveat of course is that swing voters are going to decide on the president. probably not the temperament of the vice president in this debate. >> rose: what about abortion, rich? >> i thought that was a great answer from paul ryan. i thought it was deeply felt, it was sincere and i think it always pay for pro-life politicians to go right to the moral beliefs because i think most people will give someone a lot of leeway on that, and if you actlly look at the breakdown of polls in terms of gender there is not a big gender gap in terms of who is pro-life and who is pro-choice. the gender gap is driven more by different attitudes women have actually on size of government,

issues and government policy generally, and one thing i think was interesting in this -- after the presidential debate, you saw on some polls the gender gap closeup when romney didn't talk about women at all and when they obsessed over it in the convention to me that was a sign that women like all other voters are really judging on the most important and central issue in this campaign, and that is the economy, when romney was more credible on that and gained with everyone including women. >> rose: chuck todd, will fact checkers tomorrow morning look at this and examine this and find out and suggest that somebody was either misleading or, quote, lying? >> i don't think there are any lies in there, my favorite part is when, you know, there is that one point where you have joe biden saying 97 percent of small businesses make $250,000 or less and paul ryan insisting 1 million businesses are affected by that and that is they are both rde but, right but want to use different numbers one wants to use raw data and the other percentage to make it look large and make

themselves look right i want to point out on abortion, i thought what was amazing with that question about the catholic faith and martha raddatz put it is if it is possible for both of them, in their initial answers on this and i think as a conversation went further down the road, we can debate that but their first initial answers and that personal answer they each gave if you can say they both answered it as well as one cld ssibly ansr i if on pro-life trying to soften their stance and explain it to somebody who is not pro-life, and then somebody who is pro-choice, trying to soften their stabs and explain it to somebody who is from life, i think they both showed how nimble they were on that issue at the beginning, now, as it went on, i think you saw ryan get uncomfortable having to basically deflect his position and say, a romney administration is not going to be pursuing this when it comes to various issues on abortion. so that is wte think it got

tougher for ryan as the debate carried on. >> rose: okay. i want to just open this up without a series of leading questions by me in terms of what you saw and what interested you, i will go just to start it off by john heilemann who has the same fascination with narrative that i do. where is the narrative of this campaign now? because one of the narratives coming out of the last debate was mitt romney, a man we had not seen and finding out that the needle seemed to swing most in that debate when he seemed bipartisan and more moderate. john. >> well, i think the narrative, charlie is it draws on some of the things we have already been talking about which is to say, the biggest -- nothing that happened in this debate even though as many of us have said, joe biden accomplished the big objective of trying to rally democrats and i think that is important for obvious reason that biggest thing that happened for mitt romney in fact over -- at the after the denver debate

democratic enthusiasm rose and ryan countered that and that doesn't change the big question which is still, where is president obama? where was his performance a week ago? what is he going to bring to the debate next tuesday? and i think this is a place hold the in that res. that is the question. 67 million people watched the debate last thursday, last wednesday night, and that is more people that have watched any previous obama debate and the speech that was given election night 2008, any state of the union and i predict there is going to be more than 67 million people watching the debate on next tuesday night, becse much of the cntry now is desperate to know whether this president is going to rise to the challenge. to me that still is a big narrative. the big narrative revolves very much around president obama and i agree with you about mitt romney. i think you saw tonight with paul ryan he used the word bipartisan on several occasions for a guy who is seen as being a very hard right conservative he was pitching to that same, to

sat same, to that same audience it is clear the romney sees they have gained something like that or the only way to go to conceivably win the election so romney is still going to try to occupy that gound but the onus of the next debate and the big next narrative turn is all with president obama. >> rose: and his task is made more difficult by that we saw with the biden tonight? >> i don't know if ask made more difficult n a lot of ways, i don't think anybody -- there will be some people who will cheaply say, wow, joe biden came to play and barack obama didn't, i think biden got by throwing the kitchen sink at ryan he got a lot of stuff on the table where obama doesn't have to introduce that stuff now into the conversation, it is kind of out there so obama ca n pick and chse and they can look at their focus groups and look at the research and see what worked together. >> tonight for bide and obama can then sees on that in the next debate to his advantage. >> rose: gwen, is quite right about the focus group and look

what is showing up in the romney focus group this idea of bipartisanship works with women, which is why the rich's early point they don't have to talk about women issues to appeal to women because they like the idea of governor romney working with democrats, what is interesting is okay they can to do the focus group and see what worked for biden, but can president obama deliver wit the passion that biden delivered it with? wide again, biden, you could hear the nuts and bolts rattling on the biden machine as he kind of was all over the place but passion behind it and he was at one point toward the end he says i am just frustrated with the attitude of the other side to sort of explain why he was kind of a little over the top and that sense of passion, i am fighting hard for you, i am fighting so hard and so exercised about this i may be kind of losing it a little bit, that is something that conveys kind of at the gut level more than a precise targeted attack on a specific issue that might work welln a cus group. i guess the last point i would make is on the democrats were excited by biden for sure, i

think the republicans will not be dispirited by paul ryan's performance. i think they will find biden rude, i think they will biden acquitted himself pretty well so i don't think there will be the deflation post this debate that there was with obama, now of course there won't be because it is a vice presidential debate but i think that ryan is thinking about his future, i think can probably feel okay with the way he performed. >> rose: katty kay, you are coming to us now from washington, your impressions? >> yeah, agree, i think paul ryan performed well and republicans will be quite happy with him, he was clear, he was coconcise, he too was energetic and we have never seen him perform on such a huge national platform as this one, and he held his own against joe biden, i mean, this debate some polls are giving it divide and some are giving it to ryan which suggests to me it is pretty much of a wash. i wonder how much this helped barack obama. i think that one of the things that people are going to remember about this debate is less whatoe biden orpaul ryan

said than joe bide's constant smiling, shaking his head, oh, my god, looking i thought at some point at something that was just suggesting maybe a little unhinged, i actually thought it came across as slightly condescending and pat tronizing and even a little arrogant and that is exactly the same rap that some people have against barack obama's performance recently, the schtick against obama 35 is one yet he has a tendency to be a little bit arrogant, the last thing the white house needs at the moment is for people to say look this arrogant white househey don't listen to oer pple and don't take this seriously and not taking us seriously i think that could have hurt with some swing voters, i, from the feedback i have had from people that were watching in their homes, there were even people who had a ten ency to want biden to do well and they didn't like to a see, like what they saw this terms of body language. >> i know you have to leave shortly. >> the business of air gadgets,

arrogance of biden we mentioned in the first go round, what does that leave a voter if it is a democratic voter they loved it, the question really is. >> right. >> rose: -- who was this debate directed to to have consequences? >> , you know, it is interesting, as i felt like in following my -- the liberal tweerters and i follow and the conservative folks i follow on twitter the they were all obsesd about joe biden, right, he was the unifying force, even passionate happiness or passionate disdain and sort of the same sort of disdain that the right has had for biden, now, i do think this was about the base and about sort of reassuring the base that there is fight there but, you know, it goes back to you are asking this narrative question. to me, one of the reasons why i think this debate would only have been meaningful had ryan sort of cleaned biden's lock, right, if we would have the same conversation that was being had adjust last week when it had to do with romney and obama. the president had to show

somehow he has to channel a little bit of biden's passion without going too far there, and show they wants the job. you know, one of the things that i thought came across with biden tonight is he wants to fight for this thing, what came across for romney that a lot of republicans and conservatives have been looking for, does he want this job? he is going to do what it takes to win this election? mitt romney came across that way, president obama looked like uno what? he wasn't sure whether he wanted a second term or not. so i think that that is i am guessing the lesson will take out of this. how do i get a little bit of biden's passion but at the same time look lake i also respect and take my opponent seriously. >> rose: gwen, does this mean that really we are looking implat style here and not where there was some capacity for voters to listen to these two men and decide they agreed with one man's judgment on foreign policy or on afghanistan or on medicare, rather than the

only issue .. is whether you like joe biden or didn't like joe biden or whether paul ryan seemed like he was up to the job of being president? >> well, charlie let's talk about style and substance. the style points, you know, i moderated two of these debates, these vice presidential debates, one in which they are standing at separate podiums and one in which they were seated in that circular table like martha raddatz did tonight and i thought she did a great job. >> rose: i did too. >> one way they react when sitting across the table that's when he asked about the 47 percent and paul ryan obviously planned response was well sometimes things come out the wrong way you know that joe and biden was able to say yeah but i mean it when i say i it and that brought him back around to the question of passion that mark was talking about, but on the substance part of this, let's talk about the loose end that were left on the table, what happen, their disagreements or at least unresolved differences on iran and actually what action it is united states should take and on

afghanistan and whether or not -- i couldn't tell in the end of that exchange whether or not the republican ticket believes he should, the troops should leave in 2,014 or not and libya a lot of questions still about whether the obama knew, when they knew it, how they acted and whether they acted in advance to protect the embassy, the consulate in benghazi, that at one point joe biden said we had no ideaof a repeat requests for additional marines or support or security, and that, i don't think has been resolved, we have seen that playing out in congressional hearings this week, i am not sure that is what people vote on but i do know that is what some of the substance was that was unfolding tonight in part because these issues are in martha's -- >> rose: martha, i mean martha raised a question earlier about libya, paul ryan jumped right on that to make the attack he wanted to make. where did that issue play in terms of looking at foreign policy? because the

administration adds taken great pride in terms of foreign policy and especially the battle against terrorism and especially the killing of osama bin laden. >> well, they clearly dropped the ball on this, particularly in their initial response. i thought biden did okay tonight, but i would have scored that for paul ryan, because i think the substance is more on his side. i think on the other side ryan had a little bit of difficulty in differentiating what he and romney would do in both iran and afghanistan than from what the administration is going now, most of his critiques were about things that occurred earlier than what will occur in the next year and on domestic issues i think probably as smart as ryan is, they have a problem on this tax question, because the fact of the matter is they haven't identified a single loophole. those will be voting issues, i am not sure. two other points. two crosscurrents here, charlie, one thing joe biden did tonight he put the middle class issue back on the agenda, it was

basically taken off the table because of obama's pitiful performance last week and i think that helps the democrats if obama can capitalize on it, secondly the debate next fuse is a different format, it is a town hall and i think that makes it more difficult to criticize the other guy, so i think that makes the test a little bit harder for the president than just simply to come back from denver. >> rose:. >> charlie -- >> rose: yes. and then we go to mark. go ahead. >> on the point about the middle class joe biden is getting some criticism from the blogosphere on his closing statement being some what waffle any but i, waffle y but his answer before that whenarth ask about their percents who they were, their characters and he gave a very clear about my whole life has been about defending the middle class, that's who i am. he did it in about 15 seconds sway benefit when it comes to joe biden he didn't have very much time but he did it clearly and with passion and i thought that was one of his strongest

moments on the debate, on the foreign policy side, one thing i thought was really interesting was how much biden was on the defensive, foreign policy, national security have been this white house's strongest suit during the course of this electio something on which they thought were unassailable yet that is when joe biden in the beginning of this debate i thought was most defensive most on his back foot. >> rose: mark halperin, what did you hear tonight that will make it more difficult for mitt romney to have the same kind of performance he had in the first debate? >> well i think we will continue to not hear much about whether either ticket would do in another term for the president or first term for romney-ryan, and i think congressman ryan went out of his way, except on taxes, when he tried to draw a sharp contrast he went out of his way to really dole the thing on medicare, on social security, on iran, on "iraq, on afghanistan, he really went out of his way to basically say well we agreed with you about this

and we agreed with you about that, he picked his spots, libya and taxes were the two i thought he was most aggressive and i think it is still the case romno win convince people he has got better ideas for the future, particularly on the economy, i don't think paul ryan laid doubt very many predicates today for him to pick up, it is still a challenge because on things like taxes they don't want to be particularly specific about the loopholes and deduction side of things. >> rose: so we didn't do any further in understanding any differences between obama and romney on their economic plans? >> i didn't hear anything that would have been, for people who followed closely or for people tuning in for the first time what is the obama plan for turning the economy around? what is the romney plan for turning the economy around? there were bits of that but es both of these candidates and i think the presidentials have the same issue for the most part they are more interested in talking about their own past or the other guy's past or bad things that the other guy would do in the future rather than a positive agenda for the future.

>> rose: the other thing is, if any of you picked up on this, we had better economic numbers last friday, suggesting tha that maybe a recovery is underway, even though the numbers are still bad and even though looking at gdp growth it looks bad, but that does, does that some how play into this presidential race? if romney was basing his entire campaign on how that economy had been mismanaged and now it seems to be coming up, does it make it more difficult for mitt romney to make the economic argument? >> it does a little bit, you saw when joe biden brought up the secretly taped video of the 47 percent the responseñi to 47 percent from ryan was, ten percent unemployment in scranton, so it was focus back on unemployment, now, biden then says but you are not paying attention to the numbers, things are getting better, so he wouldn't be able to make that case if the numbers hadn't gotten better recently but to pick up on what mark said, ryan mentioned twice the five-point plan that mitt romney has put forward but i don't think he actually enumerated what is in

the five-point plan and joe biden didn't do it at all, it is all he had his fist's in ryan's mouth the whole time but there was nothing coming out about what obama is going to do other than to protect from the horrible things republicans are going to do. >> rose: clinton says if you have your fist in the other person's mouth they can't be talking. >> that is something the ryan people negotiated and wanted explicitly because they thought it is harder to to be a jerk when you are sitting next to someone but biden falsified that entire theory and you could tell where the debate was going right at the beginning when he said that is malarkey which told you how aggress stiff he was going to be and told you a little bit about the intellectual tone and when he brought up the 47 percent i remember listening to the answer and there were about 15 different things packed in there that ryan, you know, would take half an hour to explain and defend them all so that's the way he was a the aggressive but this kind of performance, charlie is not available to the president. he cannot be like this.

>> rose: in twitter because of the style -- >> someone said on twitter of biden's performance this is not a pridential performance, it might be a vice presidential performance and i think it reflects the false view of romney's victory that he was aggressive and stepped all over the president, the trick, the way -- the reason why romney won such an overwhelming victory is he would be on the substance, won on the substance and he was civil, something -- >> rose: yes. go ahead. >> it is ga when, hi. we know for guinn. >> .. they don't get people elected but they can make people take a second negative look at ou and that's watt we have se n theast. but also thinking of something he said about the twitter stream and all the part stance so sharply diswieded over the debate and occurs to he we can't forget the people who already made up their minds who they are going to vote for like rich said he had earlier, they are not the ones this debate was -- were aimed to, i think, i spent the

weekend last weekend in jefferson county, colorado where i ran into a woman, who said you know i really like romney when he talks about business because i am a small businesswoman but i really like obama when he talks about women's issues and i wonder if her -- she is sitti at home watching this debate tonight in lakewood, colorado changed her mind or whether it formed her thinking or help her make it up, i don't think it did. >> rose: chuck? >> well i would just say, in baseball terms, because it might be possible the yankees orioles game may be out of the corner of my eye in the middle of a series. >> and exactly, but think of think way, so game one, romney won, game two, had, had ryan won this debate decisively and there is no way to look at it the polls are split on this, some polls give it to biden, on substance abide den controlled this debate, a debate coach may say. >> it was important to the biden campaign hot to lose this

debate, a draw, even split, whatever you want, however you want to look at it, it was about getting to the next presidential debate while not keeping -- while sort of lifting up the base a little bit and i think on that score will is a sense of relief in chicago between that and oh, by the way, there seems to be the romney bump, it is big in some of the national polls, it is smaller bump in some of these battle ground polls, so the built in structural advantages that the obama campaign had built up in the battleground states over since months is holding, sort of the levees haven't broken yet, the president lose as second debate that is whole other story. >> rose: i want to turn now from this debate to where the campaign is, we have had two debates and we have one coming up, a big one coming up next. where is the campaign? where is the momentum? where is the debate? where is the petition in the swing states? john? >> well, the campaign is basicallwhere we were fore the convention, so we had the convention, the real estate went up because of his convention or

because of the ads run tag time and romney took it away from him. so we are back stuck in the super tight race, the national numbers still look a little bit better for romney than they go in the states, it looks like colorado and lawyer, if you look at the swing state polls that have been taken since the debate are looking a little bit better for romney so we color those sort of a pink. but ohio still looking good for the real estate, wisconsin looking good and even in some of these polls virginia is looking good for him storks what we have seen, at least at the moment in this snap hot is a little bit of a breakdown in what was before the debate a kind of steady success for the president and all of the ten or so battleground states. >> rose: so right now we are waiting right now now for the next debate to where the campaign is. >> we are wait gog the next debate but have early voting going on and that's why the this vice presidential debate matters, both democrats and republicans are working the base hard but if you have dispirited people they won't muscle it up and do the early vote, i think if biden injects some energy in the democrats that will help with the votes being cast right now in the important battle

ground states. >> rose: i raised this question earlier do we expect to see more of the quote, moderate romney in this campaign? >> mark halperin? >> every indication is that we will, because they still have a problem, if you go to the battle ground states, probably their biggest problem remains women voters, the agenda gap there and suburban voters and you saw paul ryan again rounding off some edges, smoothing some things down, trying to be part of the ticket that says we can get things done, we can work together. now, at the same time the biggest news today in the campaign before the debates was the only thing tt hppened of any significance was romney really escalated the rhetoric on benghazi on the question of the president's culpability, it matters less, going left and right i think what matters is why denver was so important, mitt romney needs to continue to show himself as a personality and an ability to communicate with voters on the ground in these states that will make a difference.

he is in ohio which at this point is the critical state in this election, bar none, if romney can win ohio his path is almost as good as e president's if he can't win high owe it is very tough, he is spending a could of days here, paul ryan is spending a few days here, they have to figure out a way on the ground to have an impact in the state of ohio that he had nationally with denver. >> rose: yes, go ahead. >> >> rose: john. >> john heilemann here. let me just add to what mark said, and go back to what john dickerson said a moment ago. the race is, in terms of the polling and how tight it is and the basic dynamics, it looks wide on the side of enconventions but one thing that changes athe republin w had a close race with obama leading in the close states narrowing and a totally consistent strategy from the end of the republican primary straight through to september, which was not mitt romney is a liar, not mitt romney is a phony, not mitt

romney is a flip flopper but mitt romney is a right wing extremist that's wha what they e been saying and been on that consistently and what happened in denver was mitt romney threw a monkey wrench into that plan and what w what we have seen ine last week is obama campaign scram blink around trying to recalibrate and they have had the message they have gotten to now is they are trying to simultaneously and this is what you saw biden do all might tonight simultaneously say, romney is a liar, can't be trusted, isn't telling the truth, can't be trusted and also let me remind you he said, he and paul ryan are right wing extremists at the same time so their message now is complicated, and it has posed the kind of strategic conundrum that i still don't think -- they are trying to do kind of a high brild of, hybrid, and flip fp, ar,iar and right wing radical and haven't quite found the right pitch for that yet and that's where joe biden is groping for and one of the things this debate showed me at least is that is what they are going to try to do, that is,

they are not going to try to go down, you have to go back to right wing extremist or change entirely to flip flopping phony, they are going to try a hybrid dies that message, that is what biden did tonight and i assume they will try to do next tuesday. >> rose: the republicans after the debate, the first debate decided they hated barack obama in terms of want to defeat him politically than they hated the idea of a moderate republican? >> that is a very strong desire to beat the president. but to me, it is surprising, it took that long for mitt romney to begin to brag about romney care, which i am not a fan as a bipartisan accomplishment and i think there are still two dogs that haven't barked here, one i am surprised he hasn't done more to try to distance and differentiate himself are the bush administration, and one way to do it, he has done a bit of this and ryan does it as well is not blame obama for everything, and say there are serious

problems in this country, entitle.s, the tax system that doesn't work .. healthcare system that doesn't work that predated obama and his predecessor didn't deal with either and i will be a departure from both of them and i think also, although this is tricky with ryan on the ticket, pivoting off the house republicans and the partisan contention, in washington. if i were mitt romney i would say, if you loved the first debt showdown, you are really going to love the second and if you send president obama back, you are probably going to have a republican house, you are going to have exactly the same thing, elect me and we will get something done. >> rose: gwen. >> i think both sides have something complicated to do, but in some respect but what we have seen this week since the last debates it is a more clicked goal to do, what the republicans are trying to do, which mitt romney is trying to, and paul ryan are trying to shave the corners and say we are more moderate and work in a more bipartisan fashion, at the same time when mitt romney says something kind of murky about

abortion as he did in the inrvie with the demoines register saying well there is nothing, almost clint ineffective assistance of counsel. >> > clinton esque. >> the hard-liners came hard so he is trying to find the middle ground, what i disagree a built with halperin is, it is not complicated to do what joe biden and obama are trying to do in the obama campaign is trying to do is say we don't trust you, who do you trust? whether calling him a flip flopper and a liar and i think that is what the grinning and eye rolling was about from joe biden tonight, it was saying, do you belve this guy? can you believe what he is saying? and i believe that is what they are going to try to use as what it seems like the thread they were trying to use to pull together their whole rationale forgetting those independent voters, keep in mind the undecided, the independent voters to say that is right, i just remember, i never did like that guy very much, that likability issue and try to exploit it, to get over the edge. >> rose: john halperin i know

you have to go, one second, kattyly come back to you, halperin you have to go so do you believe this is an effective argument that not withstanding the flip flop that mitt romney can make on going in this campaign the whole notion of bipartisan, saying that barack obama came to washington wanting to run a presidency that was bipartisan but failed to do that. we still believe in that idea we just don't believe in barack obama's possibility to do it? >> >> -- i do think it is a potentially effective argument because the argument that they brought up in the convention and they are bringing up now which is barack obama, well what is it about the way this which obama has borchd the last four years, his inability to work with republicans, do you blame republicans for that or obama or both, his inability to get that big goal achieved, what is it that makes you think it is going to be different in the next four years? we face huge chance, we need bipartisan solutions to

those challenges, barack obama hasn't been able to forge those solutions in the past, you have got to try something new, i think there is something t to that, whether romney can make the case he can actually accomplish that stay different story i want to say two quick things before i get off thair about this debate. one is, for all of our comments about style in this debate, this was like the debate in denver, incredibly substantive debate and really heartening to see that, a lot of substance on the table and the second thingly say is, martha raddatz, great job tonight and you may quibble with a little more foreign policy than there should have been, given that voters are concerned about but boy just up and down, she did a really great job, she controlled the debate, she handled it incredibly well and asked more question was tough and fair and wonderful. >> rose: i agree with that and also agree with debates at tables are much better. katty? >> yeah, i agree. with all of the above, martha did a great job of keeping the debate following along and following up on questions when

she felt she wasn't getting a straight answer which is perhaps something we didn't have that much of in the debate in denver. my big question coming out of this, if we think this vice presidential debate was pretty much a wash but probably stemmed the panic in detrimentally ranks what happens if the next two debates are a draw? effectively i think that obama is going to have to step up his game a lot and wrong that what we saw in the abc interview that he gave is going to be nearly good enough. he will have to be much crisper and much punchier and clearer than he was and much more passionate than he was in the abc interview so if that is the game he police it won't be must have, but let's say it is as wash what is going to decide this election over the next three and a half weeks and i think it gets back to something you raised charlie just a few minutes ago about the numbers on the ground changing. >> rose: right. >> and if people really do start to see in the critical swing states they start to steal in virginia and we are hearing this and they start to feeling itn ohio and florida the trajectory is starting to get a little bit

more, that the confidence, even if it is not there yet, people start to have a little bit more confidence it is moving in the right direction, that could be so much more significant over the course of the next three and a half weeks than the two debates, assuming there is not a major win or a major loss as we saw in denver or either of them. >> rose: is there an october surprise anywhere, albert? >> well if there is we don't know about it, do we, charlie?, we will find out. i. >> rose: i agree there are cav wrats for that. go aad. thre are, but, you know -- >> i am going to follow john while than. >> i agree with john that it is a very complicated dual message that the obama people have to try to pull off. he really is a flip flopper then he is not, you know, a right wicker. >> rose: right. >> but romney too has a very complicated message, he talks about his record of bipartisanship in massachusetts, but the only real achievement he had in that sense was healthcare, and an individual

mandate and he gets shy talking about that. i think the other thing that is sort of interesting which i think was the one missed opportunity biden had tonight when they compare, when they say, okay this is a choice between returning to bush or returning to clinton, that is -- voters know what they want there, and i think that is the case, democrats will probably be making in the next three and a half weeks, it is amazing how popular the clinton administration is with voters today they remember it as food times and don't feel the same way about the bush years. >> rose: and katty the interesting question for me too is on afghanistan and when ryan seemed to be unsure if there are circumstances in which he did not believe withdrawing the troops would be the best thing to do. >> yes, listen, i mean on both afghanistan and on syria, two of the big foreign policies issues that we talked about tonight, there is really very little daylight, it seemed to me between what paul ryan was proposing and what barack obama is proposing. he said, we will look at the conditions in 2013 and talk to

the generals about what they need, but we are planning the 2014 will be the deadline, well of course the white house is going to talk to the generals about. >> about what the conditions are and wt they neein order to effectuate that withdrawal in 2014. so he was trying to say that there was some difference there, there really wasn't, again on sir, i can't he was saying we are not proposing to put troops on the ground, mitt romney has actually proposed the possibility it sounded like of arming the rebels in sir, i can't but again his criticism seemed to be of what the obama administration had done in the past, calling us either a reformer, a not coming out more strongly in favor possess the rebels. i think it i it is really hard r the -- and that is what was surprising to me about the debate, how -- when they have so little difference, really on foreign policy, on some of the key issues, the fact that paul ryan managed to get joe biden sounding so defensive over libya and what martha is suggesting they are going to carry on talking about libya over the next week or so and that mitt

romney did it again today, you know, suggests to me they think they have got something here that shows mitt romney as a leader, as a commander in chief. >> it also, they had a planned answer on libya, which they didn't quite fully execute but it is supposeto go this way which is to say the campaign, the .. campaign suggested, a member of the obama campaign suggested this wouldn't be such a bi bigg deal if mitt romney ad ryan didn't bring it up, it is an excuse, first it is the film and we didn't get the right intelligence and now it is the ryan and romney are talking about this and that's why, but the administration is not on the case, a, and b, they are just minting new excuses. they are not doing -- fix fixing it, they are just coming up with excuses, then they are going to pivot to the larger argument which that is the way it is on the economy, they blame bush they don't have a solution, they blame atms and blame japan and they blame a whole bunch of different things but they don't have a plan and that was supposed to be an attempt to use libya to make this overarching

argument about the administration kind of being out of ideas and the only new ideas they have are about new things to blame. >> charlie barb. >> >> rose: one second and i will be right back. >> biden had trouble on libya not because of ryan's handling of the issue, i felt ryan didn't have his sea legs yet he had trouble with the facts of the case, whais being said on the sunday showing is unplausible. >> a protest that went out of control and went to the assassination of an ambassador. >> rose: but we had the wrong intelligence was the problem. >> well the state department says they knew right away, and you had some testimony at the hearing the other day saying that people are saying 24 -- within 24 hours, it was a terrorist attack. >> rose: albert. >> oh, i think they boxed up libya and it is going to hurt them a little bit. still suspect, carlie, though if the effort is to paint barack obama as soft on terrorists,

soft on national security, first of all, it is not much of a voting issue, second second of all he is the guy who bagged osama bin laden when donald runs field and george w and cheney couldn't, i question whether it is .. really going to be an issue that resonates over the next few weeks. >> rose: gwen, go ahead. >> i was just going to say one of the interesting things we can't lose sight of is the whole, only reason you can defeat an incumbent, someone who already has the job and somebody who already has killed osa bin laden is to prove to people, especially to the base in in case that he is incompetent, that is how bill clinton was able to beat george h.w. bush he proved he is not able to execute the job, and so when they talked about libya or when they talked about taxes or when they talked about the stimulus, every time they are coming back to the fact -- and we heard of paul ryan make that point tonight, that the president gives a good speech but he doesn't know how to lead, that plays, they believe into their strength that mitt romney in fact does know

how to lead and that's the businessman's bkground and history, and so even though a lot of these things may not hang together separately as all of these different issues, whic whh you wonder why are they talking about them, there is a method to the madness al after a while which they bring it back to the idea that barack obama may be a good guy but he can't pull it off and we can. >> rose: in the last month of the campaign, mark halperin tell me what you think the strategy of the two campaigns is and how confident are they both? >> well, to pick up on what gwen was saying, think e libya thing attracts them for a couple of reasons there is signs the economy is better so just to make a management case against the president for the economy is not as effective as it would have been just a few months ago and some of the battle ground states in terms of consumer confidence and optimism and in terms of president handling the economy what is good about libya also is i believe they think that it is in the news and they

like talking about things in the news because they will get the kind of coverage they want and as several people have said there are still facts unknown and i think the vice president today was not particularly clean on that, and the case ty wa to maybe an going to make is, as gwen says is president is a failed leader, clinton talked about haiti and bosnia that were not in front of mind in 1992 but tied them to the notion of failed president, doesn't know how to get things done. that is their strategy i think now is to make that argument. i can get things done, paul ryan i think smoothed some of the edges to be part of a team that can get things done rather than somebody who can -- who will be part of conflict. i think their strategy is they need to keep driving, in terms of the elect foarl college they need to put florida and north carolina away if they can there is a public poll today that is usually a pretty good poll that shows romney with a very large lead in florida, i don't think he has that but they need to find a way so that going into the last two weeks with i the debates they hope helping them more they have got one or two or

three paths to get to 27 at this, they are not if you talk to honest republicans they are not overwhelmingly confident that, you know, for months they said we would rather be us than them, i don't think you heard too many honest republicans saying that now but he think they have a chance if the next debate goes well, on the other side, their strategy is, their premise is we have got to lead, the electorial college is still very much tilting toward them and that they believe that their ground game is vastly enter superior, and early voting and the mechanics of turning people out on voting day they think are significantly better and i think based on what i have been able to learn that is not a crazy position to have and they want to go back to doing what they have done so well and i think you will see subterranean messaging on this they want to go back to the bush strategy of 2004, disquaff the, disqualify the other gn t mind o voters that's why they talk about abortion, to divide the country. >> rose: go ahead. >> women, with women in northern

virginia, not all women, rich is right, it is not all women free with the obama campaign on abortion but for the voters they need to build the coalition, young voters, hispanic voters, black voters, women, particularly single women, they hear republicans give three, four, five different responsibilities to what is to the deal with in abortion issue, the obama campaign and the democrats have one unified issu they beeve this works forus wi a gro we need to turn out in big numbers. >> rose: you just -- i have not 40 seconds left and little that can be said in a sense to ask a question which would be unfair, thank you, gentlemen for coming over from cbs. >> i will just grimace and grin inappropriately and wait, make some impression. >> rose: albert, thank you as always. gwen i it is great to have you, come back any time you want on this program. >> thank you, charlie. >> rose: thanks also to john heilemann, chuck todd had to leave, katty kay had to leave for all of us who love politics, these twodebatehave be something to watch, and we all,

we only can hope tuesday night will top the both of them and one more time we will have an opportunity to see this tinge that defines who we are and defines the kind of government we get at play. clearly the president will come back, everybody expects to be on his game and there is no reason that governor romney will not be on his game, that is something wwe all want to see. thanks for the people who watched and thanks for the people who came here for this live broad kay cast, we will see you tomorrow night.

>> rose: fding f charie rose has been provided by the coca-cola company, supporting this program since 2002. and american express. additional funding provided by these funders.

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